brillomaster

glad you got it sorted! i'd say the bottle goes to karlh, and a miniature to Neilp

ps you're unlikely to run the falkens to the cord - the circuit is very smooth, we didnt see much tyre wear at all. Unless of course you're going sideways at every corner

The width of the tyres wont make a difference to the size of the contact patch - thats just a function of the weight of the car and the tyre pressures - ie a 3300lbs car on tyre pressure of 33psi means a contact size of exactly 100 square inches - or 25 sq.in per tyre. regardless of the size of the tyre. what will change is the shape of the contact patch - a wider tyre will obviously have a wider contact patch, but be shorter front to back. this means more lateral grip, at the expense of longitudinal grip - ie braking and accelerating. Saying that, if you're zed is on standard brakes, you're likely to reach the limit of the brakes ability before you reach the limit of the tyres to brake, so that'll be ok. what you might struggle with is putting power down out of corners, of which there are quite a few tight ones at bedford. but conversely, there are some really decent fast corners where you need lateral grip - and since the falkens are nearing the end of their uesable life, i'd go for the Rotas

have a good one! have you driven it before, can be a bit greasy in the wet. As for wheel choice, the lighter RAYS will be more responsive on track, but personaly i'd take whichever wheels have the better tyres on... after all the only thing that connects your car to the road is 4 small contact patches where rubber meets tarmac - so you want those contact patches to be working as well as they can!

true but a ferrari developed 4.5 litre V8 in the 458 Italia puts out 562bhp, or 124.8 hp per litre what you need are engine components able to withstand a stratospheric rev limit (say, 9000rpm) combined with a high compression ratio and all airflow mods to get air in and out on time.... by ferrari logic the absolute max you could get from a 3.7 litre engine would be 462bhp, but to make that power there wouldnt be anything left of the original engine!

im not planning on going anywhere! my car is a keeper, as long as its just me and my girlfriend then i will stick with 2 seat sports coupes. i'm on 56k currently doing 8k a year, see no reason why i shouldnt get up to 100k in my zed, at which point it will likely be retired to track use

get in touch, at santa pod i believe they have wheels to rent as well as numerous tyres to burn through. ask them to hold a pair of drift 17s, and then use their tyre fitting services when you get there.

Mmmmm the want is strong with this one! but the GF wouldn be best pleased considering i just bought a Cobra exhaust! GLWTS - sure it wont hang around long (please can someone buy this to take the temptation away from me!)

Crikey, thats.... striking! I love the colour, and the rear wing looks very conventional (albeit ginormous!) However, the dive planes are more extreme than Poirot's moustache, and the bodywork behind the front wheels looks like a bad filler job, covered in tinfoil

my guess is its had a clutch at that mileage! would have needed a very sympathetic driver to get to that mileage on an original clutch in my opinion. the biting point is indeed quite high as standard - if it starts to go, it'll start slipping under full load in higher gears first. I dont think any car can pull away in third without a reasonable amount of clutch slip.

ah on a trackday you shouldnt wear out a good set of tyres, depends how much drifting you do - and if you do a lot of drifting you'd get black flagged anyways! i think a general rule is that 1 mile of track driving puts as much wear on a car as 10 miles of normal driving - so if you do 200 miles of track driving (one full day), that would be the equivalent of about 2000 miles road driving - most tyres can do 10-15k so you wouldnt wear them out in one day. drift day you're best off with a second set of wheels, and then the cheapest nastiest tyres that still hold air IMO! but as said, they have tyre vans with part worns which you can use, normally £10 a tyre. as for fuel, probably quite a lot... most people either go get fuel or top up from jerry cans during lunch, we normally use about £80 worth on a full day.

if you're worried about other drivers, and hitting something, maybe try an airfield day? simple track layouts, very little to hit, lots of space for other cars to get past - and the days are generally less busy anyways. And cheaper to start off with. airfields are more abrasive on tyres than proper circuits, but if tyre longevity is your thing, i wouldnt be doing trackdays, and certainly wouldnt be drifting (although you'd never drift on your road tyres, that would be ludicrously expensive considering you could kill a set of rears in 5 minutes whilst drifting) insurance is a tricky one - normal rule is insure what you cant afford to replace. i personally cannot afford to replace my zed outright - however, i also cannot afford insurance for trackday use, so we have an old BMW we use specifically for track work, and is not insured. you will find that using a zed on track is expensive - heavy powerful car, hard on brakes and tyres. if you drift it you'll be hard on the clutch and tyres, and cooling systems. however, that said, if you have a bit of cash, i'd fully recommend doing some track driving - its the most fun you can have with your clothes on, balancing right on the edge of grip and occasionally applying a quarter turn of opposite lock at 80 mph plus, its a lot cheaper than driving out to germany to legally drive at 130mph (back straight at bedford)

wow what a stunning motor, can see why this made it into the calendar, some of those photos are amazing. Best of luck with the sale, can't see this sticking around very long!

cant argue with maths - next time you fill up, reset the trip computer and work out your actual mpg, and then its a simple calculation to work out how far you can actually go on an 80 litre tank - assuming you drive in the same style. i find the mpg reading is pretty accurate - been ignoring the fuel gauge and dte reading for about a year now, never had a problem, as long as you reset the trip computer and mpg reading at each fill up.

my fuel gauge is terrible. the other day it was screaming bloody murder at me to put some petrol in, (DTE had been on '----' for 20 miles) but i'd only done 330 miles on the tank, and my mpg reading suggested i should be good for over 400. Sure enough, when i filled up yesterday could only get 58 litres in, so still had 22 in the tank Nowadays i reset the mpg reading at every fill up, and as long as its above 26mpg i know i can do 400 miles, regardless of what the fuel guage and DTE reading may be telling me!

Welcome! On the other hand to the views above, i dont think the newer car is worth the extra tax outlay - after all the increase in power is largely a result of a higher redline, but i rarely go above 5k anyways, soi wouldnt notice a difference. In fact, the older car has slightly more torque, so for cruising i think you're better off with an older one. If i was doing trackdays however, i'd want theextra power, so depends on usage! Generally if well maintained the cars should be pretty bulletproof - check oil levels regularly and be sure to use super unleaded, and you should have car good for 100,000 miles or more no problem

if you could upload anything you have of the bmw that'd be really good... i'm always too busy driving to worry about filming, so as such dont have many in car clips! a helmetcam seems like a very good idea though - can see the track and (more importantly in our case) the amount of steering corrections!

Well what an awesome day! started damp but dried out nicely, Bedford is an awesome track! thanks for the ride Will, even a standard zed feels great on track! hope you can sort the brakes though, a lot of people rate Ferodo DS2500s.

i like it, tyres always look waaay more race with writing on the sidewalls, easiest way to look pro! However they do look a bit pricy, sure i could achieve the same effect with a stencil and a rattle can.

looking forward to seeing you both there! look out for a ropey dark green E36 saloon, that'll be us! while we might not have the power of an m3, we're running nice and light so can certainly see off the pesky FWD brigade if its dry... however in the wet we'd be overtaken by a mobility scooter!

yep just round the corner on tachbrook road

haha you're not wrong, seen quite a few people come off there! theres just a patch of tarmac just on the apex that is like sheet ice, on what is otherwise a corner taken flat out!

would love to do racing, but have always considered the costs to be prohibitively expensive - cost of car can be very cheap yes, but you'll need at a very minimum fia spec cage, seat, harness, fire extinguisher and so on, and very likely the car will need suspension, chassis stiffening, wheels, tyres etc etc to be competitive. And then the cost of racing entry and accomodation again is quite a lot for what you'd get - maybe an hour of practice, a 20 minute qualifying session and a couple of 20 minute races? Therefore i stick to trackdays... still the same buzz of driving a car flat out on a track, but with considerably lower cost of entry, less chance of damage repairs and you can start with any car, and modify it as and when budget and talent dictates. I have a friend who does autosolo events in his MR2, which is also very cheap, but he rarely gets into second gear, which isnt really my thing!

Have to be quick if you want to book though, looked today and there are only 6 spaces left. http://www.javelintrackdays.co.uk/trackday/ I think Bedford GT is a really good track, quite long so a fair few corners to remember but it all flows really well in my opinion. Plus its got a really long straight to go really fast!

just to back up what Ekona said, Michelin Pilot Super sports are widely regarded as THE BEST everyday road tyre you can put on a zed, so defo dont get rid of them! R888s and Yoko AD08s are both semi slick trackday tyres IMO - wouldnt run either as an everyday tyre as i wouldnt trust either to displace standing water as well as a decent road tyre. However if you only drive in fair weather they would be ok. Also R888s and Yoko AD08s will wear out a lot quicker than MPSS, but thats the compromise for a lot more dry grip.